Rep. Blake Farenthold: House Republicans ‘would probably get the votes’ to impeach Obama

If you thought this summer’s congressional town hall meetings are all about Obamacare and immigration and other momentous issues, you’d be wrong.

As Rep. Blake Farenthold discovered at a recent meeting in Luling, the issues of Barack Obama’s birth certificate and impeachment of the president are on the minds of constituents, too.

And the Corpus Christi Republican — unlike House Speaker John Boehner and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain — was not ready to close the door on either fringe controversy.

Rep. Blake Farenthold (Official photo)

Responding to a woman who complained about “the fraudulent birth certificate of Barack Obama” and accused the president of criminal conduct, Farenthold mused about the prospects of impeaching Obama.

“When you tie it into the question I get a lot — ‘if everyone is so unhappy with what the president has done, why don’t you impeach him?’ — and I’ll give you a real frank answer about that,” he said. “If we were to impeach the president, we would probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn’t be convicted.”

Farenthold, a second-term lawmaker whose redesigned district stretches from Corpus Christi to the outskirts of Houston, Austin and San Antonio, never disavowed either birtherism or impeachment. However, he did say on the subject of Obama’s birth certificate that “unfortunately, the horse is already out of the barn on this. The original Congress when his eligibility came up should have looked into this and they didn’t. I’m not sure how we fix it.”

The woman handed him documentation that she said “proves that a felony has been committed.”

The congressman told her: “I will certainly take a look at it” and asked a staffer to “get it on my desk where I can read it.”

He cautioned against impeachment not because it was wrong on policy grounds or could hurt House Republicans politically but because it would legitimize the alleged crimes of Obama.

“What message do we send to America if we impeach Obama and he gets away with what he’s impeached for and is found innocent? What do we say then is okay,” Farenthold told his constituents. “Aside from the fact that it wouldn’t be effective, I think there’s some potential damage to society that would be done with a failed attempt at impeachment.”

The woman involved in the 3 minute, 50 second exchange with him was unconvinced.